The present invention relates to a system for continuously monitoring the intake of a municipal fresh water system to detect pathogens, chemicals, and other biological contaminants, and to automatically shut down the intake system and contain samples of contaminants at the point of detection.
With the rise of terrorism in the world, the likelihood of an attempt to contaminate a municipality's fresh water supply is quite high.
“Nearly all known biological warfare agents are intended for aerosol application. Although less effective as potable water threats, many are potentially capable of inflicting heavy casualties when ingested. Significant loss of mission capability can be anticipated even when complete recovery is possible. Properly maintained field army water purification equipment can counter this threat, but personnel responsible for the operation and maintenance of the equipment may be most at risk of exposure. Municipal water treatment facilities would be measurably less effective. Some replicating (infectious) agents and a few biotoxins are inactivated by chlorine disinfection; for others chlorine is ineffective or of unknown efficacy.” Environmental Health Perspectives, Vol. 107, N. 12 (December 1999)
On Oct. 18, 2004, President George W. Bush signed the FY 2005 Homeland Security Appropriations Act, which provides $28.9 billion in net discretionary spending for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The Act, among other things, increases the U.S. Coast Guard's budget by 9 percent. In addition to maintaining its ongoing mission, the budget provides over $100 million to support the implementation of the Maritime Transportation Security Act, which will increase the Coast Guard's ability to develop, review and approve vessel and port security plans, improve underwater detection capabilities, and increase the intelligence program. The Act also provides $11 million to integrate, in real-time, bio-surveillance data collected from sensors throughout the country and fuse the data with information from health and agricultural surveillance and other terrorist-threat information from the law enforcement and intelligence communities.
There is a need for a system and method to monitor and thwart terrorists' attempts to contaminate municipal water supplies.